UAFS volleyball coach Jane Sargent didn’t want to talk about her team’s win over Dallas Baptist on Saturday morning. She didn’t want to dwell on Saturday night’s loss to No. 11 Washburn at the Mary Beth Sudduth Invitational at the Stubblefield Center.

“Right now, we’re going to turn out attention to conference,” Sargent said. “We’ve got to take it one game at a time. At times, we’ve got four freshmen out there.”

Washburn’s Marissa Cox and Sarah Vicory combined for 29 kills to pace the Blues to a 25-20, 25-19, 25-17 victory.

UAFS, 3-0 in Heartland Conference play, finished the weekend with a 1-3 record in the extremely tough six-team tournament. The Lions started Saturday with a come-from-behind 26-24, 22-25, 22-25, 25-21, 15-11 win over Dallas Baptist.

“The biggest gripe last year was our schedule,” Sargent said. “We had a lot of wins, but we weren’t beating anyone. We didn’t have any good losses. We set out to have a really, really tough schedule, to try to play some of the top competition within the region and a little out of the region with Washburn. We didn’t get any great wins, but we battled.”

The Lady Lions had their moments in all three of their games with Washburn, holding late leads in two of them. UAFS battled back from a 16-11 deficit in the opener and led 18-17 before Washburn responded with kills by Cox and Korie Thompson.

Paced by junior Michelle Walker and freshman Payton Hamilton, the Lions held a 14-12 advantage in the second game when Vicory’s hard kill helped swing the momentum.

Vicory’s kill gave the Blues a 20-16 lead, and Makayla Maxwell’s block and Cox’s clinching kill finished off the Lions.

“We would get to 17, 18 or 19, and all of the sudden they (Washburn) would accelerate,” Sargent said. “They had relentless pursuit. We would pound the ball and they would take it down and put it back over.”

Jordan Erz’s tip gave the Lions a 5-3 lead in the third game. UAFS led 6-4 when the Blues began to rally. Maxwell, a 6-foot-1 middle hitter from Omaha, Neb., blocked Hamilton’s attempt to snap a 10-10 tie.

Erz’s kill gave the Lions hope, as she tied the game at 15.

But three kills by Cox started a clinching 8-0 run that proved to much for UAFS to overcome.

Washburn’s Abby Wittman had 40 assists, and Courtney Churchman led the Blues with 18 digs.

Senior Jordan Erz led UAFS with eight kills, and two other Lions — Hamilton and Walker — finished with six kills apiece.

Erz helped rally UAFS in its earlier bout with Dallas Baptist. She and freshman Katarina Krtonosic had 16 kills apiece, and Walker had 11.